Book Review: The Gift of an Ordinary Day

I don’t know where I ran across the book, The Gift of an Ordinary Day, however I was excited when I saw it. Back in 2013 when I read Katrina Kenison's book, Mitten Strings for God, and I first began my search for a simplistic life.  I have yet to achieve this “simplistic life” that people talk and write about however,  I keep buying books about it and continue to read and dream about it.  

This is a picture of my journal entry & Blog entry Here.  

This memoir chronicles Katrina's thoughts and decisions and she begins her midlife years.  Her boys are moving on to high school and college and she writes about her feelings as her role of mother changes more into advisor/cheerleader.  She writes about moving from the city to the country and how that affects her and her family.  

Once again, Katrina’s writing brought a great sense of peace and quiet to my thoughts each night.  I loved reading this book before I went to bed because it calmed me down and helped me find rest in my soul. She writes, "I want to be glad for life as it is right now, accepting that we are, each one of us, struggling along as best we can to become the people we are meant to be........I want to live with a sense of abundance in the here and now knowing that what we have is exactly enough."

Wow, this was a powerful statement!!! To know we are exactly where we are meant to be...and know we have exactly enough. I don't know about you but I am a dreamer and I am always dreaming of how to make my life less crazy. I keep telling myself, life is suppose to be easier, why am I still running at 90mph.

Katrina quotes Charles De Lint at the beginning of Chapter 3, "When all's said and done, all roads lead to the same end.  So it's not so much which road you take, as how you take it."  This quote reminds me that I have so many blessings and I am so thankful and grateful for their presence in my life.  A simpler life doesn't mean a HAPPY life.   Happiness and joy come from love.  So instead of working towards a simplistic life I should, "Bring love into your home, for this is where our love for each other must start."-- Mother Teresa.

The last chapter of the book is entitled, Pansies.  At the end of the chapter Katrina writes what she has learned from a most unlikely neighbor, Debbie.  She writes about a woman who appears to be an older person who just wanders around the neighborhood walking up and down the road.  However, what Katrina learns over time that this is a women who is suffering greatly from medical issues and is in constant pain is on a mission.  Each day she goes for a mile walk and feeds animals and tends for plants on the way.  Debbie is just caring and loving the space where she is with no expectations in return.   Debbie's acts of daily kindness and love is what happiness is all about.